Failures And Successes Of Peacekeeping In Africa

Peacekeeping and peace building undertaken by the UN and the Security Council historically has had mixed results. The deployment of UN peacekeeping troops has tended to be both tortuous and highly problematic because decisions to deploy peacekeeping forces cannot be made without the unanimity of the Security Council's five permanent members (the United States, Great Britain, France Russia and China). This has made rapid deployment of UN forces very often impossible. In addition, the UN peacekeeping missions in Africa did not last long as a result of the fiaskos in the 1990s.

First published in 1998, Peacekeeping in Africa was written to help make up the shortfall in the number of books that concentrated specifically on peacekeeping in Africa. The book covers the main peacekeeping operations of Africa, and provides a wealth of background material. In doing so, it explores the policies and actions of the international organisations concerned and the participating African states. It also considers the impact of sub-regional powers and the role of the USA, Britain, and France. Comprising three parts, Peacekeeping in Africa examines world perspectives, case studies, and wider issues surrounding Africa’s peacekeeping operations.

Offering the first comprehensive analysis of United Nations military protection operations across time and UN missions, this work draws on a novel dataset that covers 200 operations from ten UN peacekeeping missions in Africa from 1999 to 2017, and evaluates the successes and failures of UN military troops in protecting civilians from violence.

In recent decades, African states have developed an impressive infrastructure for training their peacekeepers. In addition, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and associated areas of conflict resolution have become significant areas of employment. Marco Jowell has spent a decade working in peacekeeping training in East Africa - initially as one of the foreign 'Technical Advisers' at the Peace Support Operations (PSO) training centre in Kenya, the International Peace Support Training Centre (IPSTC) and subsequently as a strategic adviser to the Rwanda Peace Academy. Using first-hand experience, he considers how military forces from a variety of African states - with great differences in history, language and political systems and with militaries with different cultures and capabilities - can conduct complicated multinational peacekeeping operations. He shows how regional peacekeeping training centres provide an environment for African elites, predominately military, to interact with each other through shared training and experiences. This process of interaction, or socialisation, improves skills but also encourages cohesion so that future African-led missions will be managed by well-trained officers who are comfortable and willing to work within a regional or Pan-African framework. Jowell shows that part of the aim of peacekeeping training centres is to foster a Pan-African 'outward' looking ideology or disposition as well as improving technical ability. This book will be essential reading for all involved with African military and security studies and analysts of peacekeeping training and operations.

"This book is about the games that Great Powers play. Nearly half of all UN peacekeeping missions in the post-Cold War era have been in Africa, and the continent currently hosts the greatest number (and also the largest) of such missions in the world. Uniquely assessing five decades of UN peacekeeping in Africa, Adekeye Adebajo focuses on a series of questions: What accounts for the resurgence of UN peacekeeping efforts in Africa after the Cold War? What are the factors that have determined the success, or contributed to the failure, of the missions? Does the mandating of so many peacekeeping missions signify the failure of Africa's regional security organizations? And, crucially, how can a new division of labour be established between the UN and Africa's security organisations to more effectively manage conflicts on the continent? Adebajo's historically informed approach provides an in-depth analysis of the key domestic, regional, and external factors that shaped the outcomes of fifteen UN missions, offering critical lessons for future peacekeeping efforts in Africa and beyond." --

Dennis C. Jett examines why peacekeeping operations fail by comparing the unsuccessful attempt at peacekeeping in Angola with the successful effort in Mozambique, alongside a wide range of other peacekeeping experiences. The book argues that while the causes of past peacekeeping failures can be identified, the chances for success will be difficult to improve because of the way such operations are initiated and conducted, and the way the United Nations operates as an organization. Jett reviews the history of peacekeeping and the evolution in the number, size, scope, and cost of peacekeeping missions. He also explains why peacekeeping has become more necessary, possible, and desired and yet, at the same time, more complex, more difficult, and less frequently used. The book takes a hard look at the UN's actions and provides useful information for understanding current conflicts.

United Nations Peacekeeping in Africa provides an exploration of United Nations military intervention in Africa, from its beginnings in the Congo in 1960 to the new operations of the twenty-first century. The scene is set by an examination of the theoretical bases both of United Nations peacekeeping and of Africa’s post-independence politics and international relations. The peacekeeping project in Africa is then described on a region by region basis – Central Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, the Horn and Trans-Saharan Africa – with comparisons and contrasts within and between each part of Africa highlighted throughout. A number of key questions are considered: how have developments in the broader international system affected conflicts in Africa? what are the internal and external forces which have caused African states to ‘fail’ and ‘collapse’? how have external powers ‘used’ UN Peacekeeping in pursuit of their own political agendas? what determines success and failure in African peacekeeping? are there African solutions to African problems which could supplant UN involvement? As well as providing an account of UN involvement, the book is concerned to explore the long historical origins of the African conflicts with which the UN has been engaged. Written in an engaging and accessible manner, United Nations Peacekeeping in Africa provides an invaluable examination of the complex issues surrounding UN interventions in Africa.

An in-depth 2007 analysis of the sources of success and failure in UN peacekeeping missions in civil wars.